Volatility on the global commodity markets has increased significantly over the past 20 years. Extreme examples of this are the drastic price changes – both rising and falling – in rare earths, but also in other industrial metals such as magnesium, silicon, gallium and germanium. Against the background of the energy transition and increasing electromobility, the demand for functional materials will continue to increase beyond the current already very high relevance of these raw materials. In contrast to construction materials, functional materials are generally found in low to very low contents in electronic components, batteries, magnetic materials and as alloying elements in metallic materials.
However, rising raw material prices not only mean that ore mines that were previously not worth mining can be mined economically after all, but also that recycling processes that were previously uneconomical can possibly be operated successfully in economic terms after all. While the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted at the UN General Assembly in 2015 were still formulated as a vision of how to achieve a better world with more prosperity and less resource consumption, the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan is shifting the importance of sustainability and the development of sustainable processes into the focus of European policy. Recycling processes and nearly closed material cycles have long been in place for a number of metals. However, suitable recycling processes have yet to be researched and developed on a large scale for numerous functional materials: because of their markedly dissipative distribution in the products and the waste materials.
Against this background, experts from science and industry will address the future significance of functional materials – which are system-relevant for the energy transition and the development of electromobility – and their recycling options at the 9th RUHR Symposium.
Information on participating / attending:
Date:
10/17/2023 09:00 - 10/17/2023 20:00
Event venue:
Fraunhofer-inHaus-Zentrum
Forsthausweg 1
47057 Duisburg
47057 Duisburg
Nordrhein-Westfalen
Germany
Target group:
Scientists and scholars
Email address:
Relevance:
transregional, national
Subject areas:
Energy, Materials sciences
Types of events:
Conference / symposium / (annual) conference
Entry:
09/29/2023
Sender/author:
Juliana Fischer
Department:
Ressort Presse - Stabsstelle des Rektorats
Event is free:
no
Language of the text:
German
URL of this event: http://idw-online.de/en/event75279
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